ISLAMABAD, 9 July 2004 — The embassies of the United States and Britain resumed full operations yesterday after security at diplomatic missions was beefed up in the wake of recent terror threats. The Saudi Arabian Consulate in Karachi also reopened yesterday after a brief closure on Wednesday.

“The High Commission (embassy) is open for full service,” British High Commission spokesman Tim Handley told AFP. The United States Embassy, which resumed its visa service on Wednesday, was also working normally. “Both visa section and the embassy are open today (Thursday),” an embassy official told AFP.

The recent threats forced staff to cancel a July 4 celebration at the US Embassy, which like the British mission is located in the high-security diplomatic enclave of Islamabad.

Anonymous telephone calls threatening rocket attacks triggered the simultaneous shutdown of US and British missions on Monday, while the visa section of the Saudi Consulate in Karachi was briefly closed on Wednesday.

The US and British missions had also received several threatening e-mails over the last month, a Pakistani security official said Wednesday.

President Pervez Musharraf has recently said that shutting embassies was unnecessary and played into the hands of the extremists. “I would like to say that the easiest weapon in any extremist’s hand is to send a message and terrorize, even though they don’t have the capability or means to do anything, so one should guard against any undue alarm,” Musharraf told a press conference in Helsinki during a state visit to Finland on Wednesday.

Police said security at the Saudi Consulate in Karachi had been tightened. “We got orders from Islamabad to take extra security measures at the Saudi Consulate,” police officer Muneer Shaikh said.

Pakistani authorities said that there was no threat to any individual country’s interests but security was tightened in view of general risks.

“There is no country-specific security threat but we are taking measures to beef up security of other foreign missions as well,” chief of Pakistan’s Crisis Management Cell Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema told AFP.